Brennan and Visma | Lease a Bike’s Kuurne story is even more special than you might think

Brennan hit the deck in the finale of Omloop on Saturday and didn’t finish the race. The medical verdict afterwards was blunt: scrapes and bruises. In the mixed zone before Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Brennan played it down. He didn’t reveal too much, but admitted the crash had been hard and that he was in plenty of pain. He also spoke about nerves.

Sports director Maarten Wynants saw Brennan on the massage table on Saturday evening and feared the worst, but the main man already had his mind on the next race. “I wanted to forget the day, because there was a lot of frustration — and that also led to the crash,” the stage winner said at the press conference to IDLProCycling.com. “I was lucky with how I came out of it, with only a few scrapes and bruises.”

“Crashing at 60 km/h (around 37 mph) isn’t nice — especially when you realise you have to go back into that same chaos a day later,” Brennan laughed. Yet he did exactly that. “Mentally we switched and started thinking about how we would approach Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne. I’m quite analytical, and sometimes it’s easy to improve things. I can bring that across to the team.”

It sounds simple, but Brennan admitted he didn’t feel comfortable throughout Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne. “My whole left side is quite swollen, so especially on the cobbles that wasn’t nice,” he said. “But mentally — with positioning — it was madness anyway. I saw so many near-crashes. That’s also why I missed the move halfway through the race for a moment.” Teammate Pietro Mattio brought Brennan back.

From there, Visma | Lease a Bike barely left the front. “We had the chance to take control and I felt good,” Brennan explained. “We could throw a few fast guys overboard and that would help us for the finish. We went all-in and wanted to hurt the other teams. That put us in a situation where we could finish it off.”

In his first interview after the finish, Brennan also praised his lead-out — which, in his words, made it almost impossible to get wrong. “Everyone did their job brilliantly. Laporte did such a good lead-out that I basically only had to do the easy part in the last few hundred metres.”

It’s a great story — and one that’s only just being written. Where are Brennan’s limits? The Briton wants to find out too. “I’d love to do Milan–San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix in good shape, but 200 guys in the peloton will want that,” he said. “I’ll also do Gent–Wevelgem. As a team we want to get the best out of ourselves in every race. We’re chasing results.”

Winning the biggest Classics is the dream, but Brennan stressed the importance of patience and consistency. Comparisons with Wout van Aert? “Nice,” but nothing more than that. “If I can even head in the direction of that kind of career, I’d be super happy. Wout helps me a lot — he’s a really good guy. He’s very personal and never acts too big to help. A really great teammate.”

“I don’t feel any pressure from the team,” Brennan added. “I know my limits and the team knows them too. Based on that you can plan things, but it’s still cycling. In the end, it’s the work as a team that determines whether you can win or not. There’s a really relaxed and welcoming atmosphere here — nobody takes things personally. We want to improve together. That’s what it’s about.”

Bram van der Ploeg (X: @BvdPloegg | e-mail: [email protected])